A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of FriendsClarkson, Thomas
Religion
A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends
Clarkson, Thomas
Society of Friends
A third cause of disownment, but this belongs to the original and
remote, was shewn to be the pursuit of trade, connected as it is with
the peculiar habits of the society and a residence in the towns. I may
propose as remedies for this, first, that parents should be careful to
exhibit a good example to their children. Secondly, as I have before
observed, that they should prescribe to themselves moderation in the
acquisition of wealth, either by relinquishing trade at a given time, or
by dealing out the profits of it more liberally than common in the way
of benevolence, so that their children, in each case, may never have the
misfortune of the prospect of a large moneyed independence before their
eyes. Or lastly, that they should give them a better education than
they do at present, on which subject, according to the prescribed order
of things, I am now to speak.
A fourth cause then, but this belongs also to the original and remote,
was shewn to exist in education. And education, as it was promotive of
the diminution of the society, was of two kinds.
With respect to that part of it which is alien, the remedy is easy.
There has been great difficulty in procuring proper schoolmasters, I
mean such as have been Quakers. Two reasons may be given for this. The
first is, that the society having been backward in affording due
encouragement to learning, few of any great literary acquisitions have
been brought up in it. The second is, that persons have found, that they
could make much less of their time in such a line of employment than in
the way of trade. But surely the Quakers, as a body in comfortable and
independent circumstances, might easily remedy the evil. Does not a man,
who devotes his time to the instruction of youth, deserve to be made as
comfortable as the man who sells silver utensils, or bracelets, or
ear-rings, or other articles of trade? Is there any comparison between
the moral usefulness of these? Is there any profession more useful than
that which forms the youthful mind? or rather, is it not the most
important profession in the state?[52]
[Footnote 52: It is but justice to the Quakers to observe, that they are
taking more pains than formerly in the promotion of this object. I am
told that there are more private seminaries now kept by Quakers for the
education of the youth of their own society, than even before the
institution of Ackworth school.]
With respect to the education which is acquired in the society itself,
the remedy is not difficult. This education was shewn to be of two
kinds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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